GOTM-03: Second Spoiler

[akots]

... My problem when I try to DOMINATE is to handle the cost of so many cities. How can you do it? When I fought Egypt and had 11 cities I was at 0% research for some turns until I recovered to 70%. ...

Code of Laws is the critical tech here. First, it enables to build courthouses. Every city should have a courthouse. Also, it greatly helps to trade CoL to all AIs with which you are planning to go to war. They might build courthouses for you in their cities, so that you would not have to build courthouses there yourself. Also, find some captured city with lots of forest tiles around it and chop Forbidden Palace there. Another critical warmongering tech imho is Banking which enables mercantilism. Also, having Printing press is very beneficial.

It is a good idea also to build many cottages in the core cities early on in the game. This slightly might slow down the growth compared to farming everything but these cottages are really helpful after Printing press. Another point is not to pillage the cottages and their upgrades in the AI territory around the cities which you are planning to capture.

Also, the warring should never stop. This enables the economy to survive in hard times due to plunder.

Of course, having specialists in the cities requires rather tedious micromanagement but it pays off. First, set the luxury slider (enabled by drama) to minimal value required for most cities to have no more than one unhappy citizen per city. Better if there are no unhappy citizens. If there are still a few cities with unhappy faces, these cities need theaters. Then, depending on your position in the game and the budget, hire all merchants or all scientists if you can make the ends meet without merchants. Capturing Pyramids also enables two rather useful civics, police state and representation. Either one of them is good. If you are behind in research and ahead in conquest but still need to face a strong opponent (need a better unit but cannot research normally at more than 30-40%), representation is the civic of choice. If you think that the game can be finished with whatever techs you already have and you just need more units, then police state is a good option.

Another thing, do not stop warmongering, you would need that plunder to sustain the economy before reaching banking. Immediately after the discovery of banking, the economy should be in a very good shape especially if there are a few banks built as soon as possible in the largest cash-making cities.

If you are in a really desperate situation, it mgiht be a good idea to farm for 2 great people and trigger golden age with them. You then would be able to build courthouses faster and may be even research something without going bankrupt. It lasts only 10 turns but still is often very beneficial. Also, and this is very important, have enough workers in newly conquered areas to chop trees and improve the terrain so that these newly captured cities can start growing and can be productive.

All these points are very well covered in the strategy articles forum.

 

[P.eter]

Second GOTM try, GOTM 2 I lost And this one I lost too
I thought I was holding me strong, not at the last place, but second to last. I had a little advantage in the tech tree because the AI wanted too trade many techs...
I was planning for a culture victory with the warmonging of the Japanse to hopefully be a good defense... NOT
I like everyone else probably got all the resources in the neighbourhood, not much trouble with barbarians, just 1 turn too late to get a barbarian village, which Elizabeth took before me
But the village was surrounded by me, so I planted a Culture bomb, and yes a couple of turns later it was mine (it was the village covering the elephants and dye)
I was on a rather friendly basis with everyone expect the indians they were too small so I could ignore their threats.
Too my suprise Elizabeth declared war upon me, and I was overrun with Knights and catapults, I tried to defend myself by rushing some samurai's but to no avail...

I don't know why Elizabeth choose me as victim, maybe I was weak or maybe of the village I took earlier on...

Conclusion: Monarch is too difficult for me at the moment, but I had fun. I try a similar game on a lower level... And maybe try the GOTM when I win a similar game, just for fun...

Till next month,
P.eter

 

[AG713]

I started off placing my three main cities where most everybody did. Capital to the southwest, and second city near the dye and ivory. I used about 5 warriors to clear the fog of war and minimize barbarian attacks.

Fairly early into the game, Hateshepsut founded Buddhism. Then, to my surprise and happiness, she build Stonehenge and the Buddhist holy building. I made a beeline for bronze working, got the copper to the west, and attached her once I had build 4 cities. By then, she had about 6 cities. Knowing that the capital had a wonder, was the Buddhist holy city and had the holy building completed (and all the Buddhist $$), my army passed up three cities and went straight for her capital. It fell fairly easily, and so did the rest of her empire. The money from Buddhism kept me afloat above 60% science (at a minimum) the rest of the game.

Immediately after Egypt fell, I upgraded my axeman (and swordsman) to Samurai and leveled most of the Aztec empire in about 20 real time minutes. There was only once Aztec city left, an Indian city bordering the far eastern border of the map that Monty had taken in an earlier war with Asoka. I couldn't see the city, only the green border. Since neither Asoka nor Huayna would give me an open borders, I had to leave it and deal with unrest in all the other Aztec cities.

But the constant war took its toll, and by the time I had destroyed Monty (except for the one city) the best unit I could make was a grenadier. And it wasn't enough to attack anybody since by then all the other civs had a few riflemen, cannon and grenadiers in all their cities.

Technologically, I was way behind. Luckily I finally coaxed an open border agreement out of Huayna and found the last Aztec city. To my surprise it was the Taoist holy city! Took it over, but it was really too late to do much with Taoism. Everybody was free religion except Saladin who was Buddhist.

At this point, It was the mid 1700's and I didn't think I had a chance. I was way too far behind in tech for conquest or domination (which is what I originally aimed for). Cultural was also unrealistic, and I know that being so far behind in tech wouldn't allow me to win Space Race.

I thought about Diplomatic victory. I had about 40% of the map and population, and Victoria was second. Saladin was friendly toward me, and Victoria was please. I planned to beeline for Mass Media, but then Saladin unexpectedly attacked Victoria making him the second biggest and most populous civ. This destroyed my Diplo plan. Even if I build it, Saladin would be running against me. I had been counting on his support for diplomatic victory but now I couldn't.

It was now about the mid 1800's. Saladin had only 3 parts left on his spaceship, and Victoria, Asoka, and Huayna weren't far behind. Again, I was hopelessly behind in tech and only had one part of my ship built. I was getting desperate and considered making a crapload of nukes, or trying to get somebody to go to war with somebody, but couldn't get either going.

Then I got a surprise. Huayna built the United Nations 3 about 10 turns before Saladin was going to finish it (knew this because of a spy). That meant it was me vs. Huayna. I got votes for secretary general from both Victoria and Asoka, but not that son of a ***** Saladin who was now only pleased with me! I knew I wouldn't have enough for a diplo victory without him. So, in a move of brilliance I switched back to Theocracy (and buddhism) knowing it was Saladin's favorite civic and religion. Everybody else was free religion, so they didn't care. I also switched to Representation knowing it was Victoria's favorite civic. The first election I ran was diplo victory, and got all votes except Huayna and won! Saladin was 2 parts away from space race victory, and my spies showed me it was 5 turns away!

I got lucky on this one. I only won because Huayna build the UN. Anybody else builds it (including me), I wouldn't have won probably. Ended up winning diplo in 1892, with a score of about 25500.

For you vets out there who won a domination victory, I'd like some advice. I felt I moved very quickly in destroying Monty and Hatshepsut. But after the Aztec war, I was too far behind in tech to take either Saladin or Huayna. How did you guys get them? Did you have a tech advantage? Did you just overwhelm them with numbers? If you had a tech advantage, how did you do it so quick?

 

[Jastrow]

I am by no means a vet, but I did get a domination in 1640, so I will take a stab at this.

I did not take out Hatty. She founded a religion which ended up spreading to several of my cities, and I addopted it. I was on rock solid friendly terms with here the entire game (~+17 in the later parts). I just left her to guard my back-side, and went for a counter-clockwise domination fighting a series of one-front wars.

I did not go to war as early as some... I started with a chop-rush assisted expansion, building 7 cities (including my capital) in a roungly ring shaped configuration around my capital by about 0 AD. I was a bit behind in tech, until getting Alphabet, which I actually had to trade away for tech parity). I started pumping out swordsman for a war against Monty, and was planning to attack in about 250AD. He declared in 210 instead. Fine with me....

Swept through 4 cities, including his capital, and sued for peace (getting a couple of techs), and beelined to Samuries. As soon as I got the sams, I took out all but one of monties cities, and then sued for peace (another tech) for 10 years, as I healed and continued pumping out sams.

After 10 years, I took out is last city, and moved on to the Incans. Sams (along with a few Cats) sliced through him reasonably easily. I get him down to 2 cities, and sue for more tech. During this peace, I beeline for Liberalisme, take nationalism as my free tech, and begin reearching Mil tradition. I trade away (almost) everything including Liberalism, as needed, to get ALL outstanding techs. I keep exclusive rights on Nationalism however. That is key!

Now, I shut off my tech engine, set science to about 10%, move the culture slider up high enough to deal with any war weariness, and start making significant cash as well. Convert ALL cities to building for a long term war (courthouses, barracks, and some cats while I research Mil. Trad. Cavelry thereafter).

My horses and cats, escorted by a few well promoted sams, make short work of the remaining Incan cities, and then slice through Osaka, who is backwards (defending with archers and longbowman). Eventually, I also sued him for peace with one city left because he somehow had gotten a city in the middle of Saladins territory, and I had no intention of trecking all the way over there to get it! Vick was the first real threat to offer opposition, but it was in the form of rifleman, not redcoats, and they were still in the minority part of her army, which was mainly elephants and longbowman.

I had been pretty friendly with Vicky all game, and some time before I was ready to attack (before taking Osaka's last few cities), I bribed her (using some tech along an unexplored line, that I had picked up along the way; maybe constitution or something, I dont really remember)to declare was on Saladin. The main point of that was to get her elephants over to the other end of her empire, allowing me a first wave of stricks with no quick counter-attack. She was ahead of my in the power graph, so I need ed to use my slightly supperior troups to make gains early.

Also, during this prep time, I moved half a dozen troups to the edge of the Hatch/Saladin border...

When I declared on Vicky, Saladin immedietly granted me open borders, so I could now move those troups through Saladin land into vickys backside. They will not be doing any serious fighing, but have another purpose...


I was able to take 2 cities a couple of turns after declaring on her. and moved into another 2 before her elephants made it back to this front. During this time, I also disconnected all her easterly resources. As soon as the elephants started heading back, my western cavelry swept in to disconnect all her resources at that end.

I know had a slight edge in the power graph, and here economy is crippled as she has no resources. The rest is a fairly standard war of attrition, where I did take significant loses to here elephant counterrush, but nothing which ever put me in danger. The march over the domination line was a mere formality after wethering the elephants.

 

[Dynamic]

Game date: 930 AD
Base score: 3584
Final score: 246283

haha and as for you guys losing 3 points... I only lost 2 hmmm I wonder why...but then again it doesn't matter

2 points - 3 points... submission page add me 70K points!!!
I think it's some mistake in calculations or I miss something because my real values are:

Game date: 800 AD (Domination)
Base score: 2833
Final score: 175877 (submission 246240???)

So, at least I can say the faster is not always better (for score) in comparing to Memphus.

 

[ionimplant]

well, look at my final score on the submission page:
Final score: 2,175,591
(in reality i got maybe 60,000 )

 

[solenoozerec]

yep, I am having a similar problem, submission page gives me ~120K, while the real number is ~80K (e-mailed to staff shortly after submission).

Edit: Hey, if ionimplant has >200K with 60K, I should have >200K with my 80K too

 

[fbouthil]

Contender.

Situation at 500AD: I have conquered the Aztecs and more than half of Egypt.

560AD: Egypt down to one city. Make peace with Egypt for Calendar, Theology and 70g. Eliminate Egypt after the peace delay is finished. Since longbows will appear shortly, I research guilds first and start making knights.

1000AD: Start a war with Arabia. Minimal resistance, I settle for peace when it has only one city, in the middle of England.

1240AD: I learn Military Tradition and complete the Taj Mahal using a great engineer. I stop research until all my knights are upgraded.

1260AD-1355AD: Incan war. No problemo.

At this point, I make a big mistake. I thought I could milk the score by building lots of cav near both Indian and English border and conquer them so fast that I would conquer almost all of them before getting to the domination limit. Unfortunately, I am not very familiar with the techs past military tradition and England got to liberalism first getting the tech to get Red Coats, so when I decided to attack India and England, I could only conquer one English city before domination because I needed cats against English cities to get a chance against Red Coats. I will try stuff in test games from now on, not in GOTM!!

Domination victory in 1435AD, score of 149K.

Pretty good for me considering this was my second Monarch game. The first one was a test game with the same settings, although I had a few unsuccessfull test games before that I did not finish (same settings, but randomly generated).

I built only 4 cities and never used any samourai.
Aztec war: Axes
Egyptian war: Swords
Arabian war: Knights with cat for highly defended cities
Incan & Indian war: Cavalry with cat for cities on hills only.

I guess I would have done much better if I did constant war, but I have a tendency to alternate between all peace and all war. This was the first game where I actually played with the culture ratio for happiness, I guess I should use it much sooner.

GOTM1: Noble
GOTM2: Prince
GOTM3: Monarch
GOTM4: ?

It looks like there is a pattern here.

I guess I should start playing at Emperor level, just in case.

 

[Firebot]

Sadly, while I did great in my test games and even had my highest scoring game in one, my GotM was horrible on some really bad decisions and really really bad luck dealing with the AI. While I didn't technically lose, I am not going to be submitting my game as I am still a fair bit away from a victory and would need to take out either Victoria or Incas, which would take me to at least 1950 before I could manage a win (while stopping Victoria from winning the space race).

My biggest mistake (which cost me at least 2-3 centuries alone) was trying to snipe Egypt's worker when I met them, and failing! Stupid mistake, should never have entered Egypt territory and declared war unless I could take the worker on that turn, I missed, an archer killed my warrior and the worker barricaded himself in the city. I was at war (a phony war if you will) with Egypt until I finally discovered Alphabet and gave her Writing (she kept wanting cities in exchange for peace).

I eventually met Montie, which was another downer. The big problem though is that Saladin declared war on me in 440AD, even though I didn't have a religion and he only had one city on my borders and the rest far south of Egypt. I ended up in a heavy defensive battle and managed to kill at least 20 of his units without losing a single one with a strong defensive position, however Montie demanded that I convert to Confusianism to which I obliged not wanting to face him at the same time. Well that upset Saladin's Judaism block which by then consisted of Victoria, Incas and Saladin, and in 650AD, Victoria declares war on me too! Yes, Victoria who was in the southeast corner of the map declared war on me in the northwest.

I finally declared peace with Saladin in 840AD under favorable terms for me, but his units and Victoria's was about to finally overwhelm my border defenses. With Saladin out of the way, I managed to survive Victoria's onslaught to the point where she stopped asking for my cities for peace and eventually I made peace with Victoria in 1055AD on a turn where she finally offered gold to me for peace.

As you can tell, I was in no shape all much of the early game to even go on the offensive as the AI all picked on me, and my economic situation sufffered due to it. I managed to get the Great Library and the Hanging Gardens during that time, and my capital along with Osaka became juggernauts in production and research. Oh did I mention that all AI's were either annoyed or worse with me by that point, except for Asoka who was my only tech trade partner, and Montie who for some reason LOVED me by then (Friendly) Montie proved to be useful to me later on as I sent him off to war while gifting him techs to build his massive army against my Judaist enemies. Well needless to say, even with Montie on my side, I was almost all alone and had to research most techs by myself from this point on. Montie around this time attacked Egypt after Egypt declared war on them, and decided to raze 4 or 5 cities including the capital leaving an empty lot of land around 1000AD for the taking. I jumped on the Egypt bandwagon and had declared war against them (a few turns still left before I had peace with Victoria) while Montie was pillaging with no mercy, and I managed to steal one city.

Research wise, I was actually doing well, and was the first to discover Liberalism. The final war against Egypt was called on 1290 by Montie by my request, and I followed his lead in 1330AD. In 1485 the Egyptian civilization was no more (I switched Montie to battle the Incas halfway through to keep them from growing further). In 1535AD though, Saladin declares war on me again, this time with waves after waves of camel archer (my army consisted mainly of samurais and grenadiers at this point, and samurais really don't work well against camel archers)...I lost ground on several cities losing a couple of captured cities including one which switched hands about 4-5 times (got Montie to help me again though). This war took forever, and in 1758AD, Victoria AGAIN decided to attack me just as I had finally turned the tides against Saladin and had almost reached his capital. Again, I lost my newly captured Arab cities, and put back on my heels at the same place as when the Arab wars started. Peace was made with Victoria again in 1800AD, at this point I scrounged up whatever I could to finish off Saladin that had been rebuilding for a little while and declared war in 1804. The Arabian civilization was no more by 1872. At this point it's probably a good time to mention that the Arab military cheated, and SOMEHOW ALWAYS won 80% odds 80% of the time which contributed to how long the war was. I've never seen anything like it. I even lost 2 level 5+ rifleman to a badly wounded cavalry unit at 95% odds without him getting dinged. It was to the point that I said 'oh gee, 84% win odds, means his unit will come out unscathed again - oh look I'm Ms Cleo!'.

Montie was getting slaughtered by Incas to the North, and I put him out of his misery taking his last remaining city in 1877.

By this point, while I did have an 800 point lead over Incas, everyone was very advanced, Victoria already building her spaceship and taken a tech advantage, while Incas had huge territory. At this point, the only option was to either go after Victoria (who's cities are 'protected by Asoka's who was still around) and stop her advancement while she has a tech advantage, or take on Incas and hope that I could somehow win a domination win or diplomatic before Victoria wins the space race. It wasn't worth the hassle and I was doing too poorly that I didn't complete.

Probably one of my unluckiest games ever while being put on the defensive almost the whole game.

 

[DireAussie]

I won a space race victory in 1879AD

It was my first Monarchy game and the first time I used the chopping strategy. From the stage that I got alphabet and onwards I was always the tech leader. I constantly traded with the other civs - Saladin was particularly fond of me and we became tech trading partners, and with the other civs I made a ton of cash with the outdated techs.

I got into several wars with Monty, both which he started but which I was prepared for. I ended up conquering him completely with samurais.

I had good relations with Arabia and Egypt during most of the game and managed to sign defensive pacts with BOTH. The other 3 civs were cautious/annoyed with me but there was no way they were going to declare war with the pacts in place. With the signing of the pacts I knew I had a guaranteed space race win.

Eventually Egypt broke the defensive pact when they changed to Free Religion but that didnt matter because I had a comfortable tech lead and my spaceship was almost complete. I had 2 sets of golden ages lined up for the end and won a very comfortable space race in 1879.

 

[crunch]

Just before researching machinery I could not decide whether to attack Hatty or Monte. I did not keep many notes but 230 AD I needed 9 more turns to machinery.

I decided to start with Monte (or perhaps he decided, I don't know) and at around 700 AD Monte was pushed to some ex-barb cities in the NE corner. I did not feel like pursuing him. Tenochtitlan received a culture bomb from the free artist from music, then built/chopped forbidden palace. I did some selective razing to lower upkeep, the culture helped to fight barbs too.

Next target was the score leader Hatty who had a nice judaist shrine and bulging borders. Conveniently, Osaka (ivory city) just finished heroic epic and started to spit fresh Samurai rather quick. They did not have longbows at the beginning, that helped to get started. Used some War elephants, cats and samurai. At around 1030-1050 Egypt was reduced to a single city; made 10-rounds peace to get some techs.

Around 1150 liberalism was used to get nationalism, then researching military tradition (skipping guilds/knights completely). At around 1200 AD dow on Huayna. War progressed rather ok, despite him having an annoying amount of cities on hills. Tiwanaku had Pyramids and Chichen Itza, nice. Again some selective razing. Foes: longbows, knights, maces

At 1330 AD Huayna reduced to single city, 10 rounds peace to get techs. Attacked some remaining Monte's cities, but Saladin captured them before me. Bummer. Later I had some hard time wiping Saladin out of the NE corner.

At 1380 AD I had Taj Mahal's GA running, used it to consolidate, produce West Point in Osaka, etc. Soon dowed on Asoka, using mainly highly promoted city raider Grenadiers, was nice. Asoka reduced to 2 cities which I did not bother taking cause they were almost swallowed by Victoria's culture anyway.

At this point (1500 AD) Vicky had few GAs after her and flashed her Redcoats eagerly, thus it had to be Saladin. I had cavalry, cannons, rifles, grenadiers. Unfortunately, Saladin got rifles and grenadiers rather soon, too. Oh well. And he also had an annoying amount of camel archers, who nearly wiped off a small army I sent to secure the NE corner. In two cities, Saladin surprised me with 20+ units and threatened my Incan cities. I was safe only after getting Assembly Line/Infantry at around 1550.

At this point it was just waiting for the inevitable, but it was slow and painful anyway. Saladin had an annoying amount of units.. yeah but then finally 1650 AD I hit the blessed domination limit with 78271 points.

I did not enjoy the wars too much. It was too much for me. What went better than I expected was the economy. Chopping courthouses, building wealth, shrines, some razing allowed me to stay at 80 % and more most of the time.

 

[kojimanard]

Contender, domination in 1650 AD, score: 78.578. (From reading this thread, there seem to be a fair number of domination victories in the 1600’s; Crunch ^^^ was even in the same year.)

I had had a reasonably good start, with seven cities (two taken from Hatty) and was able to build samurai in 660 AD. I finished the Hanging Gardens (I felt I could use population) and declared on Monty in 880 AD. I had been planning, after dealing with Monty, to return westward to go after Hatty, but the Inca’s appeared weak, which they turned out to be, and I declared on them instead. I then continued clockwise and finished off those two and Asoka by 1435 AD. At that point, economy was reasonably strong, aided by many courthouses and the forbidden palace in Tenochtitlan. I had about 53%of the land, and with some city expansion expected, and a few settlers to fill in the unsettled land, I roughly estimated that London and another 4 or 5 of Vicky’s cities would do the trick. I had a stack of cavalry and cats. After I checked Vicky’s cities and found that they were guarded by a few longbowmen, I instructed Tokugawa to ice up the champagne for a circa 1500-1525 celebration. To speed up the apparently inevitable victory, I divided to army into two stacks to go after two cities at once and declared on Vicky.

When the troops arrived at their destination, it turned out that Vicky had not only discovered rifling (which I should have known about), but also had gone on a massive mobilization spree. Two longbowmen were replaced by four redcoats in one city and five in the other. And I still didn’t have chemistry, so there would be no grenadiers to help for many years. Thus began the almost two hundred year war.

Fortunately, I had a great prophet and engineer ready, and the GA keep the economy humming. After many suicide cats and suicide cav’s, the redcoats were weakened and I took the first two cities. Of course, sometimes the AI moves it strongest forces to the front lines and then it’s easier, but there seemed to be redcoats everywhere. London, which I felt I needed geographically, had about eight of those critters, and some other units, and was on a hill!

After the GA, as could be expected, the economy turned south. I have to say I agreed with the citizens when war wariness began to spread; I was feeling it as well. I went to police state from universal suffrage (available courtesy of the Inca’s Pyramids); that helped with the WW, but sent the economy even further south and meant no more rush buying. I also felt I needed to keep a strong stack in the three cities that bordered Hatty, because an attack in the west would have been a disaster; fortunately that didn’t happen. With the WW returning even in the police state, I turned up slider and stopped research, which meant there would be no cannons to come to the rescue. At one point, with troops dieing and wounded all over the place, money drying up, and a sea of red faces by Japanese cities, I had the image of Tokugawa as the Toshirô Mifune character in Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood, done in by his own ambition and hubris. (Apparently there is also an English play called Macbeth, or something like that, with a similar story. )

Finally, after much virtual bloodshed, I had taken six cities from Vicky and had about 63% of the land, and, with several cities soon to expand, I settled with Vicky in 1635 AD. Afterward I checked and I found lost 72 cats during the game, I would say 60 were against Vicky, and 27 cavalry, I think all against her. With champagne no longer seeming appropriate, Tokugawa and I shared a bottle of Jack (we prefer that anyway).

 

[Dynamic]

As I wrote in the first spoiler I started world conquering in 230AD. I choose Egypt as first target because only she has Monarchy and could research Feudalism early. I discovered Construction in 210AD only and hadn’t enough time to build cats and move it to the battlefield. So my first war was mostly without catapults and I must say it’s not good.

Siege Weapon
Several words about siege weapon. First one – catapult required knowledge of Construction to build. It isn’t too early science but isn’t too late also. What is the benefit of catapult? It can remove the city defense and increase the victory chance for offence units or, at least, decrease received damage during city attack. Do we need to build it or it’s a spending our time and hammers?
I think it depends on the main attacking force type and amount of AI military units.
1) If your main force is Knights or Cavalry catapults (and Cannons later) will decrease your attack speed because have lower speed. And may be better to build more fast units in this case. Of course, you lost more units in this case, but you could double your speed (potentially). I must note you must have enough units and AI defenders must be weak enough (Archers vs Knights or Longbows vs Cavalry).
2) If you already discovered Flight and Radio IMHO the better way use air force against city defense because of its big operating range without any danger.
3) In other case if you use the slow units like macemen/grenadier/rifleman you can get benefit from catapults/cannons especially if you haven’t large group of attackers and need to wait while old units are healing or new are arriving before attack new target. Because the catapults don’t need the time for healing (if you use it only for bombardment) you can move its immediately after first city capturing. Send them to the next target with small protection and when your healed (or new) force will arrive to the second city your cats successfully remove its defense. And, note you don’t need a big amount of cats: if you start bombardment several turns ago you can totally destroy any city defense by 1-2 cats only. Of course, if AI has a big amount of enough strong units this tactics is not so easy because of high probability of AI attack your cats. But most of AI hasn’t it if you started war in time .

In Civ3 I never built catapults and very seldom I built slow units. I did the same in my first Civ4 game - 4OTM1. But after that I changed my position and began using of siege weapons.

I lost 3 Samurais in Egypt war without cats and no more in all late wars with cats. There is only one exception, see bellow.

Wartime
After sending first group of units (11 Samurais and 3 Catapults) to the Egypt war my main cities began build units for East direction (Aztecs and later Inca) and never supply south group any more. I chop rushed workers, barracks and new Samurais in the captured cities so I had no problems with force, but, I checked it very late, I got problem with money.
In 370AD I captured 5 from 6 Egypt cities and signed peace because last city was into Arabian territory, but I got Monarchy for peace.
In 420AD I began war against Arabs and after capturing first city – Kufah, my world war stay symmetrical. Both groups of Samurais with 3-4 Catapults went East: first on South, second – on North (Aztec war began in 440AD). At this point I had 23 Samurais and 6 Catapults.

I must note as I wrote in the first spoiler my scouting warriors were killed by barbs enough early so I didn’t know all world map. For example, I couldn’t see any Indians cities and its placement were surprise for me later.

I signed peace with Arabia (1 city left) in 580AD for Philosophy (Great Scientist) and captured all Aztecs cities in 610AD. After that I had a big pause because of no neighbors near my army. That was cruel time… no money.

I researched Theology in 330AD and Engineering in 520AD for fast road movement. Just after it I look at my economy and with horror understood I have negative budget (-80/turn with 100% cash). It was a loop back from missing courthouses in captured cities. Further I began chop courthouses first and even razed one Aztecs city (really it was mistake). I was needed to convert many citizens to merchants for prevent bankruptcy and it's limited cities growth (low score). So, I was needed for war to increase my cash but can’t reach it.

I reached Inca’s border in 660AD and started war immediately. England’s war started in 700AD with little preparing. Really, Victoria was the single strong neighbor in this game. She fought against India (captured Delhi on the eyes of my scouting Samurai) and had around 20 Horse Archers. But I not needed in all her cities – for Domination I needed only half. So one of my Samurai with Woodsman II promotion (upgraded from warrior) walk deep into England territory and after some scouting fortified on the forest hill. Many Horse Archers walked around and sometimes attacked him but not ran to the London so I can successfully take it. Of course finally my brave Samurai was killed but at this point game was already near the end.

I destroyed Inca in 770AD and began war against India in 780AD, but captured only one city before Domination in 800AD.

After 700AD I began building Settlers and after 750AD founded several cities for reaching Domination Limit. In 800AD I built Hanging Gardens also.

In 520AD-750AD I additional researched Drama with 10-20% but not used it – I hadn’t problems with happiness because of too small cities. I got my second (and last) GP in 640AD (Great Prophet) and rush The Kong Miao in Tokyo. No Golden Age.
In 800AD I had –180g/turn but I never be bankrupt. At this moment I had 52 Samurais and 60 cities. So, wars weren’t too hard may be because my rivals never learned Feudalism .

Sorry for ugly picture name...

 

[Ronald]

Civ4 - gotm3 contender: Goal conquest

This is a map for warmongers.
Samurais with their 2 first strikes are even better then Pretorians. They come a bit later, but with the proper concept, as outlined by pnp dredd in the pre game discussion it is possible to get them reasonably early so that they are usefull for the whole game.
Inland sea map provides a small front, so it is possible to fight on two fronts without too much troubles.

Research path:

Pottery, writing, mining, alphabeth, priesthood, CoL, civil service (from Oracle in 980 BC),
metall casing, machinery (180 BC, Samurai to start),
literature (to build) heroic epic
construction (I did not build it for catapults, I actually did not build a single catapult the whole game. I built it to get to), engineering (increased road movement, absolutely necessary to bring the slow samurai quicker to the front)
drama (for cultural slider), paper (to extract cash from AIs by map trading)
The rest of the required techs were traded.
After I had what I needed I stoppeed any tech trading because I wanted a slow tech pace for the AI so that they develop feudalism as late as possible to avoid too many longbowmen.
I also did not trade civil service or machinery to avoid macemen

Stopping reseach early helped me with my economy. I built up a large sum of cash, upgraded units only when absolutely needed to preserve my cash pool.
Nevertheless it was a close call in the end, ten more turns and I would have been broke.


Early build order:

warrior, worker (to get improvements faster, I stole an additional worker from Hatshepsut), library, warrior, settler, oracle

In the whole game I built 4 cities:
Kyoto (3960 BC), Osaka (1375 BC), Tokyo (760 BC) and Edo (500 BC)

With my first samurais, I declared war on Hatsepsut (100AD). This was probably a mistake, I should have fought Monty first, because by the time I started my second front against him (390 AD) he had tons of units and sent 4 or 5 waves of axemen, chariots and horse archers against my samurai.
I had almost no losses, but it took untill 520 AD to conquer his first city Tlaxcala.
In the meantime the war against Hatshepsut was extremely easy. She was reduced to one city in 410 AD amd I started already the war against Saladin in 450 AD.

After the fall of Tlaxcala, the war against Monty became much easier. The last real battle was for Tenochtitlan, then he was falling apart.

Saladin was not much of fight. My veteran Samarais at this point were level 5 with city raider III and combat II or city raider III with combat I and medic I fighting archers and a horsearchers.

As a side note: At the end I had some real powerful Samurais: a city raider III with combat iV (he died in the last battle to conquer Delhi), a city raider III, combat II, 25% extra against archery units (my secret weapon against longbowmen) and several city raider III combat II medic I units

Hathsepsut was eliminated in 580 AD, Saladin in 730 AD and Monty in 780 AD.

The battle against Victoria was much more difficult than I thought. She had lots of longbowmen and it took a while to have enough Samurais next to her cities to be sure it will fall at the first try (I absolutely wanted to avoid that the longbowmen get promotions).
The British Empire finally fell at the epic battle of Hastings where Victoria amassed 5 longbowmen, 3 axemen, 4 archers and 2 spearmen

Huayna Capac was a little easier to fight (war started in 800 AD and ended in 970 AD)

By that time (800) I had around 50 samurai, more than enough as I later realized. I should have stopped building them and should have concentrated to improve my cities for maximising land and population to increase my final score.
Instead I was building samurais right up to the end.

The final opponent was Asoka (war started in 930 AD). He had longbowmen and a few macemen. They usually survived the first samurai and died with the second.
After a quick bloodbath Tokugawa and his glorious samurais conquered the world in 1020 AD. (Final score 179597)

Some statistics:

Built units:
3 settler, 4 workers, 2 warrior, 117 samurai, 39 archers and 1 workboat
Buildings:
1 FP, 27 barracks, 2 granary, 3 lighthouse, 3 forge, 4 library, 9 theater, 26 courthouse

units killed:
13 warrior, 2 quecha, 16 swordsmen, 7 Jaguar, 33 axemen, 3 macemen, 37 spearmen, 107 archer, 32 longbowmen, 12 chariot, 3 war chariot, 65 horsearcher, 15 catapult, 4 galley (all in a city since a never built any ships)

units lost:
1 warrior and 27 samurai (about halve of them in the final battles).

Now I think I have enough of fights for a while and play a more peaceful game next time.

 

[toller pretzl]

Because the catapults don’t need the time for healing (if you use it only for bombardment) you can move its immediately after first city capturing. Send them to the next target with small protection and when your healed (or new) force will arrive to the second city your cats successfully remove its defense. And, note you don’t need a big amount of cats: if you start bombardment several turns ago you can totally destroy any city defense by 1-2 cats only. Of course, if AI has a big amount of enough strong units this tactics is not so easy because of high probability of AI attack your cats. But most of AI hasn’t it if you started war in time .

Oops, seems like I missed a feature of the siege weapons.. I always just attacked with them

 

[kingjoshi]

I always use Catapults for bombardment. About 4-6 can reduce the city to 0 defense. With two promotions, they get extra bombardment, so 4 is enough with one invading army.

However, I realize now HOW inefficient my game was. My wars were took too long. I need to better position my troops and quickly move from one city to the next.

Also, my research was extremely atrocious. Waiting until 620CE for Samurais?! But you live and learn..

 

[ImperatorFenris]

My game experience seems to have been radically different from most of yours.... Yeah I did manage to secure an early lead before 1000 AD, so that for the rest of the game I was first or second, but for some reason the other AIs didnt want to fight each other at ALL. So what I ended up with was this ridiculously overpowered England that had formed some sort of alliance to the death with the Inca. Every time I would get ready to wipe out Saladin they would launch an attack (literally, the EXACT turn before I was going to attack Sal, THREE separate times). And since Vicky never got into a war, she was best friends and trading partner with everyone else. Towards the end of the game (1700 AD) she was pumping out infantry, destroyers, and artillery.

&%$(*#&%(*#$&%(#$&%(*#$&%#$%* Monarch AI, if only tech trading had been off I could have won!

 

[Harok]

First spoiler

Quick Recap
Lost warrior after worker steal to Monte so he wouldn't give me peace. He sent some archers which took one of my 3 cities. When I got axeman rolling I took back my city and was rolling through his when he nicely built the pyramids for me as I was nearing his capital.

Gameplay
Samurais started rolling off the production line about 100AD and a few of them got involved in the war to finish off Monte but it was mostly axes and a few swords. I took his capital in 290AD and immediately switched to Police State giving my unit production a very nice boost. I finished him off in 350 AD. At this point I wanted to go after Hattie next so I ran my troops south and declared war on her in 550 AD. She was a real pushover and by the time I was at her capital I started sending new troops to the East to prepare for a war on the Inca instead of using them as reinforcements. This was the golden era of the Samurais so I wanted to cover as much ground as possible. Egypt was wiped out in 820 AD.

Those troops then marched east toward Saladin and I declared on him in 880 AD. As that war was starting to get rolling I had amassed enough of an army in the north to also declare on the Inca in 950 AD. Neither put up much of a fight and Saladin was finished in 1060 AD while the Inca were gone in 1095 AD.

In 1095 AD I also finished the Hanging Gardens figuring I had just one war and a handful of cities left to take and I was worried someone else might complete it. I had never tried this tactic before reading about it in someone else's GotM2 game. It gave me a pretty significant boost in score (15 - 20K I think) and is something I will try to do in all war games where I have a lot of cities. I still need to get a better feel for how long you can hold off to build it though.

At this point Victoria and Asoka were the only rivals left and Vicky was the better target because her cities had more pop (10-13 compared to 7-9) and Asoka had a few Macemen while she didn't have the last tech for it yet. Both seemed to have pretty strong militaries though so I thought it would be best to bring the other into the war if for nothing else just to give them a target to throw some units at. Unfortunately the option for Asoka to declare war on Vicky was red. But the option for Vicky to declare on Asoka wasn't. I considered going after him instead when I realized I could just bribe her to declare war on him and then go ahead and attack her. So in 1110 AD she declared on Asoka and in 1115 I declared on her. Vicky certainly put up more of a fight than any of the previous civs but in 1195 AD when a couple of taken cities came out of resistance I won by domination. In the next turn or 2 I would have been able to take 2 more cities over size 10 each which would have given me a nice jump in score.

Research
Literature - 200 AD
Construction - 310 AD
Engineering - 520 AD
Feudalism - 680 AD
Guilds - 890 AD
Gunpowder - 1085 AD
Chemistry - 1150 AD
Paper - 1155 AD
Drama - 1170 AD
I was trying to push to Biology to get the extra food and pop. but realized I would never make it before I hit the domination limit. I felt I could have done a better job of keeping research up by building the Forbidden palace sooner and also earlier markets in my core cities which I didn't build until near the end.

Civics
Slavery - 2240 BC
Bureaucracy - 670 BC
Police State - 290 AD
Vassalage - 690 AD
Caste System - 1055 AD

Wonders Built
Oracle - 640 BC
Great Library - 400 AD
Hanging Gardens - 1095 AD
Colossus - 1185 AD (quickly chopped this to try to get some extra points right at the end)

Combat Tactics
I built many cats compared to what it sounds like others have been saying which gave me a high kill ratio but I'm not sure if it slowed me down or not. My typical tactic would be to bombard the city down to 0% or close to it and then attack. The cats and a defender or 2 would move on towards the next city while the injured would move into the newly taken city and heal. This would have them a couple of turns behind the cats which were used by the cats to bombard again, so they would arrive as the city defense was gone. This seemed to work out great but may be skewed by the fact that Samurai were such great guards for them. A single Sam and an elephant or pikeman were enough to thwart just about all attacks on the way to the next city. Most of my Samurai got archer and city raider promotions while a couple from each stack would get other things like melee or medic. At the end I had killed around 560 while losing under 50 for over an 11 to 1 kill ratio.

Final Assessment
This was certainly one of my better played games (doubled my personal high score), but I still made a ton of mistakes. It really helped that I have played a number of games as Tokugawa so I had a good feel for how powerful Samurai would be. My gameplay has also picked up with the amazing number or small tips (Hanging Gardens, switching to worker/settler right before a chop comes in then switching back so you keep growing, etc.) I have learned the past couple of GotMs. Thanks to all those players who post amazing spoilers to their fast and high scoring games.

Win Condition - Domination 1195 AD (Contender)
Final Score - 215,747

 

[Dynamic]

Good games, Ronald and Harok!
It looks like we (and Memphus) had comparable civ development in the early AD and started war about the same time, but I got the fastest victory with lowest score . Of course, my main goal was speed, but I never forget about score and now I finally understand that game balance is more interesting then I thought before.

Wait for hendrikszoon, who, possible, could reach both goals simultaneous...

 

[Dynamic]

I just look at my last save for some additional statistics and notified that not all cities got additional pop from Hanging Gardens! 2 cities with pop 1 and citizen as artist stay pop 1. Note, in these cities citizen automation was OFF, so it looks like if you build Hanging Gardens on the last turn you need turn citizen automation ON in all cities or, may be, set citizen on the food tile.